Take a Hike

This afternoon, after classes, my friend Blake and I headed out for a short hike in the Vermont foothills, where we live.  Blake got some bad news last night, and needed to take his mind off it.  I’d spent a boring two hours on the trainer (why does ESPN2 carry tractor pulls in the middle of the day on Saturday?) and wanted to reaffirm my existence as a person.  Riding the trainer, since it is simply a way to stay on top of one’s fitness, is empty of any of the pleasures of exercise: the world going by at a more pedestrian pace, the winter’s first snows, a tree of orange leaves.  The pool presents the same problem, really, the sense of one as doomed mouse, slaved to desire and ambition.

It was a short hike, about an hour out and forty minutes back, and our only view came at the turnaround, where we looked out onto a grey and white valley silenced by snow (even this only lasted minutes, as the eerie rumble of a plow rose from somewhere far below us).  We only talked a little, and that was the nervous chatter of two good but not great friends, and it was spiked with poses and irony.  But although each other’s company gave the reason for the hike, we were both out there for ourselves.  As we walked, I found myself falling into that contempletive, dreamy state that long effort brings.  Another friend of mine, named Ben, is a schemer. He likes to dream.  I didn’t realize this until I’d known him for years, and I would respond pragmatically to his grandiose plans.  He’d talk about buying land and real estate and profiting hugely on it, or about opening the first Krazy Kreme franchise in New England.  I used to think that either he was serious or joking, the only two options I could see.  It wasn’t until he answered my pragmatism with “I just like to scheme. I’m not serious. But I’m not joking, either,” that I realized the significance that dreaming held for him.

And then I recognized that I did it too, but I would be disappointed, later, when I realized I hadn’t acted to bring those dreams to fruition.  I had fallen into the results oriented world in which so many of us exist, a world that thinks dreams are foolish, if not acted upon.

As Blake and I walked through the snowy, grand, quiet woods, we each sunk deeper into our thoughts.  I dreamed about the articles I was writing in my mind, about a wild canoe race in Quebec and an access issue here in Windham county.  Blake was, I’m sure, erecting a positive end to his current troubles.  The possibilities seemed so simple, there, walking easily through the snow; all you’d have to do, upon returning home, would be to take the steps one at a time: call the subject, then the magazine, schedule the interviews, write, re-write, discuss, publish, bask.  It was lovely.

This is one of the gifts of training. The body moves repetitively, sometimes for hours, and the brain slowly becomes disinterested in the bland physical.  The world lines up in simple terms, understandable and uncomplicated.  This is all illusion, but don’t be disappointed at the illusion’s dissapation upon your return home.  We only get to live a few of those dreams our active bodies shake free from the darkened corners of our brains.  Enjoy the schemes.

New Year, New You?

Once again, it’s been a while, hardworkers. Cyclocross season finished with a manic but entertaining nationals in Rhode Island, where I started at the back of 170 guys. The highlight of the race had to be the off-camber muddy section just after the first turn. If you’ve never seen close to two hundred cyclists sprawled on the ground in one place, your life is missing something. Winter vacation hit, the kids went home, and I headed off for the kind of school break that ends up being more tiring than relaxing: Portland, New York City, Quebec City for New Year’s (for those of you penciling in Q.C. for next December’s festivities, consider Montreal instead; if you’re going to get stopped and searched by the cheery fellows at U.S. Customs, you might as well go to city that celebrates New Year’s Eve), back to Portland for a few more days of trying to see friends and sleep all at the same time. I came back to Putney exhausted, hungover, and few pounds heavier.

I only ran, during the 19 days I was away from Vermont, as pools were hard to find in the various locales of my vacation, so the training hours were fewer than normal. But instead of returning to training exhausted and discouraged, I found myself enjoying the workouts again this week. Thinking ahead to races this spring and summer, I felt anticipation, instead of the weary dread of last fall. Instead of wrestling with “Why?” I found myself thinking “When do I get to do this again?” Some of it is a month without racing. Most of it is the sense of possibility that a January brings. This is the time of year that you hear a lot of things like “Your body totally replaces its cells in a year (or seven years, or five; there’s a lot of dissenting opinion that associates with questionable science), so what are you going to make your body out of this year?” Also there are resolutions to save receipts, keep the sink free of dishes, get more sleep, quit smoking, et cetera.

When I left for a semester abroad in college, I crowed that I was going to be a totally different person, I would experiment with a new identity. Someone who’d been through the program advised me not to, saying it was too valuable an experience to waste parts of it crafting a new self. As if crafting a new self were possible. A few weeks into the semester I had established myself as…myself. My friend was right: the program was too demanding to think about something as radical as self-redefinition.

So these magazines that line the shelf this month, promising so much but really only lining their pockets on your best intentions, they rile me. Changes in behavior are not easy to accomplish; they require flinty determination and focus. As Annie Dillard says about being a writer: “You have to take a broad-axe to your life.” Luckily, most of us are good at that kind of determination and focus. And in some cases we are too good. Although I returned from my vacation less fit and seeping the excess alcohol of celebrations, I returned refocused. Dipping back into your past identities can remind you of the work you’ve done to efface a new one. I have made one goal as the calendar flipped over, but it’s the somewhat modest goal of keeping a food diary. Getting down to race weight will be easier with some accounting system in place, but other than that I’m just a refreshed version of last year’s Workharder. So here’s my take on it: you can only change one thing about yourself over a long period of time. Sit yourself down at a table or take a long drive, and try to figure out what you’ll work at this year. Meanwhile, ignore the promises shouted at you from magazine covers.